Three Cool Things About Sharon Carter

She's not a superhero but she's been a semi-regularly-appearing Marvel character since the 1960s. Granted that she was there primarily to be Captain America's love interest, but she was also an agent of SHIELD, she carried a gun (and had awesome weaponry concealed in her fingernails), went on cool secret missions, and could take just about any non-super-powered opponent in hand-to-hand combat. Unless of course she was needed as hostage leverage to be used against Cap, but that goes without saying in the Silver Age. Actual superheroines fared no better back then.

Even in the 60s, Sharon was never just a love interest. There was a point when Cap was quite the unenlightened fellow and objected mightily to her taking part in dangerous missions.

This being the 60s, she agreed to his demands to stop the secret-agenting. But when it came down to it, she couldn't do it. Sharon kept on with her work, and, eventually, Cap learned to live with it.

1. She is efficient, devoted to her work, and all business when she needs to be.

Here she is approached by an unusually annoying Rick Jones. The situation is this: at this point, Cap had just dumped Sharon because she refused to quit SHIELD when he asked her to. What does she do? Her damn job, that's what!



2. She is always prepared. For anything. Seriously.

Sharon did get captured a lot, not uncommon for 1960s comic book women--but at least she was usually captured because she had gone into a dangerous situation herself. Here, she's been captured by AIM and Cap has come to rescue her, being captured himself in the process. So who is it that gets them out of this mess? Sharon Carter, that's who!



And again, here, she's been captured; she could have escaped sooner, but she waits until Cap shows up, just in case he needs some help.



Somehow Sharon manages to think to bring just that specific piece of SHIELD paraphenalia that she'll need in a given situation. And as for all the capturing, for Sharon it's just a tool:



3. She kicks vast quantities of ass.

(Yes, this was one of the several times when everyone thought that Cap was dead.)


Of course it always helps to be drawn by Romita...